(Something we likely won't be doing ourselves any time soon, but also maybe something we might like to at least be aware of).
Remember hearing in college about ghostwriters, people who, for a fee, would write and type up term papers for students who would, to satisfy a course assignment, then submit the papers as their own work?
Needless to say, unethical, and subject to serious academic discipline if the student was discovered to have done this.
Well, today we have computers who can serve as the ghostwriters.
Or, have we gotten to the point where such "digital ghostwriters" are thought to be legitimate, if all that one is doing with them is simply employing modern electronic assistance, in preparing work that is really done by one's own hand?
Bringing Copilot into the discussion
Q: What are some websites that provide outlines for or actually write research papers on PCa
:
A: Several reputable websites offer free tools, templates, and generators that create research outlines or full papers based on the topic you provide, such as prostate cancer. Below is a curated list of what seem to be some of the more useful ones, along with what each one does best.
Top Websites That Generate or Guide Research Outlines And Papers:
1. TypeTeX – Research Paper Outline Templates.
TypeTeX provides ready‑made outline templates for standard, scientific (IMRAD), argumentative, and literature‑review papers. These templates show you exactly how to structure your introduction, literature review, body sections, and conclusion.
Best for: Students who want a clear, traditional academic outline they can copy and customize.
2. SciSpace (formerly Typeset) – Research Paper Outline Guide + AI Generator
SciSpace offers a step‑by‑step guide to building outlines and includes an AI outline generator that can turn your topic into a structured outline. It also explains outline formats (alphanumeric, decimal, full‑sentence) and provides discipline‑specific templates.
Best for: Anyone who wants both instruction and AI‑assisted outline creation.
3. PaperTrue – Free Research Paper Outline Templates
PaperTrue provides editable outline templates and detailed explanations of how to structure introductions, bodies, and conclusions. It’s helpful if you want a template you can fill in manually.
Best for: Beginners who want a simple, guided outline format.
4. Canva – Research Templates (Visual Outlines & Posters)
While Canva is more visual, it offers research project templates that help you organize your ideas into sections. These aren’t traditional outlines, but they’re great for planning research presentations or posters.
Best for: Visual learners or students preparing research presentations.
5. Template.net – Research Templates
Template.net provides hundreds of research templates, including academic research outlines, methodology templates, and structured research forms. These can help you organize your research process step‑by‑step.
Best for: Users who want downloadable, editable templates for different research types.
If you want, like the websites discussed above, I can also generate a custom outline for any topic you give me.
Just tell me your topic, and I’ll create a full-structured outline (intro, thesis, sections, subpoints, sources, etc.).
Links for the websites cited in above Copilot response:
1. https://www.typetex.app/
2. https://scispace.com/
3. https://www.papertrue.com/
4. https://www.canva.com
5. https://www.template.net/
So I took Copilot up on its offer, "prostate cancer" being my topic, and it gave me the below.
I recommend just skimming it, as my point is simply that it did give me what looks like a pretty good research paper outline for a general write-up about PCa.
(BTW, it took only about eight seconds to give me everything below!)
Copilot response:
Command: to create a full-structured outline (intro, thesis, sections, subpoints, sources, etc.). for an article about prostate cancer. Here is a complete, academically structured research outline on prostate cancer, including an introduction, thesis, major sections, subpoints, and source‑grounded details. This outline is designed to be suitable for a high‑school, undergraduate, or early graduate‑level research paper.
Research Outline: Prostate Cancer:
I. Introduction.
Background: Prostate cancer is one of the most common malignancies affecting men worldwide and contributes significantly to global male mortality.
Significance: Its prevalence increases with age, and late detection is associated with higher mortality, especially among men of lower socioeconomic status.
Problem Context: Despite advances in diagnosis and treatment, prostate cancer remains incurable in many cases.
Purpose of Paper: To examine the anatomy, risk factors, genetics, diagnosis, treatment options, and emerging therapies for prostate cancer.
Thesis Statement.
Prostate cancer remains a major global health challenge due to its complex genetic basis, variable progression, and limitations of current treatments; however, advances in diagnostics, targeted therapies, and emerging technologies offer promising pathways for improved patient outcomes.
II. Anatomy and Biological Basis of Prostate Cancer.
A. Anatomy of the Prostate.
The prostate develops from epithelial invaginations of the urogenital sinus during gestation and requires 5α‑dihydrotestosterone for normal formation.
Zonal anatomy plays a key role in understanding where prostate carcinoma originates and how it progresses.
B. Histology and Development.
Normal histological features and embryological development influence
cancer susceptibility.
III. Epidemiology and Risk Factors.
A. Prevalence and Mortality.
Prostate cancer affects men of all racial and ethnic groups, with higher mortality in disadvantaged populations due to late detection.
B. Genetic Risk Factors.
Mutations in specific genes contribute to onset, progression, and metastasis.
C. Environmental and Lifestyle Factors.
(Inference based on typical epidemiological frameworks; not directly sourced).
IV. Diagnosis and Screening.
A. Standard Diagnostic Methods.
Digital rectal examination (DRE).
Prostate‑specific antigen (PSA) testing.
Prostate biopsies for confirmation.
B. Challenges in Early Detection.
Late detection contributes to higher mortality.
Treatment Options.
A. Localized Prostate Cancer.
Active surveillance.
Ablative radiotherapy.
Radical prostatectomy.
B. Advanced or Metastatic Disease.
Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT).
Salvage radiotherapy.
Chemotherapy.
C. Limitations of Current Treatments.
Many treatments have serious adverse effects and the disease remains incurable in many cases.
VI. Emerging and Alternative Approaches.
A. Genetic Biomarkers and Targeted Gene Therapy.
Research is exploring gene‑based approaches for more precise treatment.
B. Nanotechnology.
Used for controlled, targeted drug delivery.
C. Medicinal Plants and Natural Compounds.
investigated for new anticancer agents.
VII. Conclusion.
Prostate cancer remains a significant global health issue due to its complex biology and treatment challenges.
Advances in genetics, diagnostics, and emerging therapies offer promising avenues for improved outcomes.
Continued research is essential to reduce mortality and improve quality of life for affected men.
VIII. Source List (Primary References).
"Molecules Journal Review on Prostate Cancer (2022)."
"Cambridge University Press chapter on prostate anatomy and pathology."
If you'd like, I can also turn this into a full-text research paper, presentation, or annotated bibliography.
So I again took Copilot up on its offer, and asked for and got, again in about 8 seconds, a 1500 word (approximately), well-written, thorough article following the above outline, ready for submission to anyone wishing to read it, even possibly a review panel at a professional journal.
I'm not including that written-up, expanded and completed version here, as this thread is already getting a bit long.
But you can take my word for it, it was a very impressive job, certainly an "A-level" paper on most anybody's grading scale.
Again, I don't have to include it here. If you are really interested, you can access one of the AI apps that do this sort of thing yourself, maybe one of the ones described above, or even Copilot. And then get it to write for you an impressive article about PCa, or, for that matter, about any other topic that interests you.
That's what they're there for. (For a fee, of course).
But at this point it becomes quite obvious that, as often happens, technology opens up some rather concerning ethical questions and issues.
And in this case, there's certainly a real debate going on in academic circles right now, one that is far from resolved at this point, about the place of these AI app article-writers in academic creativity.
Involving matters such as originality of work, claiming credit for something a computer did instead of us, issues of copyright, and even such things as claiming a monetary fee for work that a computer did.
Sample discussion of the problem:
https://hastewire.com/blog/how-do-professors-detect-ai-in-student-papers-1
But that's a whole 'nother can (barrel?) of worms right now, best addressed in another thread at another time.
For now, let it be enough for today to be aware that such tools do exist and are available, and are not some kind of wave of the future, but a wave that has already crashed on to the shore and is here to stay.
All that remains is to decide what uses of it we will now be making, and how ethical they will be.
And the realization that the ghostwriter may have gone from being an unscrupulous 1960s fellow with a typewriter out to make a buck, to a 21st-century treatise-composing machine that will do whatever it is told, ethical issues not a consideration.
Age: 80
Chronic prostatitis (age 60 on)
BPH w/ urinary obstruction, 6/2011
TURP, 7/2011
Ongoing high PSA, 7/2011-12/2011
Biopsy, 12/2011: positive 3/12 (90%, 70%, 5%)
Gleason 6(3+3), T1c
No mets, PCa likely still organ contained
IMRT w/ HT (Lupron), 4/2012-6/2012
PSAs (since post-IMRT): < 1.0
As a former very part time academic and freelance writer I can take a stab here. So AI is basically an overgrown search engine (the smart guy who wrote Linux, Linus Torvalds, came up with this). It is ATM good at jobs like: Look at all the published studies of Proton therapy and SBRT and for a Gleason score of six -what is the best treatment method. Or I have this three-year randomized study of 100 patients in a practice comparing urine vs blood tests, can you take all the notes and prepare it for publication. Or actually literature reviews or meta-analysis can be valuable it is good at those.
Where it all falls apart is if you ask it to create new content. In my very narrow and obscure hobby, if I ask it to write anew, the results are 3/4 plagiarism and 1/4 nonsense. Once in a while it can connect some dots - in a monkeys on typewriters sense. But for medical work, I feel it cannot create a large long-term study of a new treatment or test where there is not data. I find I don't trust the conclusions but will look at the references first.
Where it all falls apart is if you ask it to create new content. In my very narrow and obscure hobby, if I ask it to write anew, the results are 3/4 plagiarism and 1/4 nonsense. Once in a while it can connect some dots - in a monkeys on typewriters sense. But for medical work, I feel it cannot create a large long-term study of a new treatment or test where there is not data. I find I don't trust the conclusions but will look at the references first.
Post Edited (Norsk11) : 6/11/2026 7:50:14 AM (GMT-4)
This is right on. As a former academic myself, I sometimes wonder if the ultimate test of AI, maybe even its ultimate limit, is whether it can only find, sort, assemble, organize and present information that is already there.
Or can it create and give us conclusions derived from its data that are truly useful and world-changing, AND NEW?
I have spent time "playing" with AI information retrieval systems, by asking them all sorts of existential questions, such as "what is the meaning of life?" type questions, and all I have ever gotten back for answers is repackaging of existing data.
The essence of a valid, useful scientific model is that, when queried about its subject, it starts telling us things that we didn't already know, that weren't already in the data, and which turn out to be very original and helpful stuff in advancing knowledge of the field.
In other words, we got the AI system to the point where it could "think," analyze, evaluate, etc., just like a human can, and suddenly we have a torrent of really significant new discoveries, and not just data repackaging, flowing out of our computers.
What would it be like, if all of a sudden, dozens of Nobel-Prize-worthy discoveries, in all sorts of fields, came flowing out of a bunch of computers, maybe even all in a single day, if we gave them all a "search and create" command that would achieve this fantastic result!
That on that single, magical day, all the medical computers would spit out the cures for all the cancers at once, complete with all the procedures necessary to achieve this result in a matter of days!
Presumably an enormous boon to humanity!
Or would it be?
Science fiction is replete with stories of advanced civilizations that came to have the colossal power to create new and powerful knowledge, knowledge that ended up destroying them, because they weren't ready to handle such powerful knowledge.
But I prefer to be an optimist, and think, and hope, that at some point computers will provide us with a cornucopeia of fabulously useful things: disease cures, new laws of nature, leading to wonderful new technological advances, or actually workable means of achieving world peace. Truly meaningful things like that!
A new golden age? Thanks to computers that can actually "cyber-think," rather than just sort existing data?
Maybe computers actually will bring us the Millennium someday.
I would like to think that it's at least possible.
Age: 80
Chronic prostatitis (age 60 on)
BPH w/ urinary obstruction, 6/2011
TURP, 7/2011
Ongoing high PSA, 7/2011-12/2011
Biopsy, 12/2011: positive 3/12 (90%, 70%, 5%)
Gleason 6(3+3), T1c
No mets, PCa likely still organ contained
IMRT w/ HT (Lupron), 4/2012-6/2012
PSAs (since post-IMRT): < 1.0
Or can it create and give us conclusions derived from its data that are truly useful and world-changing, AND NEW?
I have spent time "playing" with AI information retrieval systems, by asking them all sorts of existential questions, such as "what is the meaning of life?" type questions, and all I have ever gotten back for answers is repackaging of existing data.
The essence of a valid, useful scientific model is that, when queried about its subject, it starts telling us things that we didn't already know, that weren't already in the data, and which turn out to be very original and helpful stuff in advancing knowledge of the field.
In other words, we got the AI system to the point where it could "think," analyze, evaluate, etc., just like a human can, and suddenly we have a torrent of really significant new discoveries, and not just data repackaging, flowing out of our computers.
What would it be like, if all of a sudden, dozens of Nobel-Prize-worthy discoveries, in all sorts of fields, came flowing out of a bunch of computers, maybe even all in a single day, if we gave them all a "search and create" command that would achieve this fantastic result!
That on that single, magical day, all the medical computers would spit out the cures for all the cancers at once, complete with all the procedures necessary to achieve this result in a matter of days!
Presumably an enormous boon to humanity!
Or would it be?
Science fiction is replete with stories of advanced civilizations that came to have the colossal power to create new and powerful knowledge, knowledge that ended up destroying them, because they weren't ready to handle such powerful knowledge.
But I prefer to be an optimist, and think, and hope, that at some point computers will provide us with a cornucopeia of fabulously useful things: disease cures, new laws of nature, leading to wonderful new technological advances, or actually workable means of achieving world peace. Truly meaningful things like that!
A new golden age? Thanks to computers that can actually "cyber-think," rather than just sort existing data?
Maybe computers actually will bring us the Millennium someday.
I would like to think that it's at least possible.
Age: 80
Chronic prostatitis (age 60 on)
BPH w/ urinary obstruction, 6/2011
TURP, 7/2011
Ongoing high PSA, 7/2011-12/2011
Biopsy, 12/2011: positive 3/12 (90%, 70%, 5%)
Gleason 6(3+3), T1c
No mets, PCa likely still organ contained
IMRT w/ HT (Lupron), 4/2012-6/2012
PSAs (since post-IMRT): < 1.0